


Ty Soplivy soplyak:  Part Two

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-03-02
Updated: 2002-03-02
Packaged: 2018-11-20 07:40:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11331390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Krycek, Skinner and even Mulder encounter some surprises.





	Ty Soplivy soplyak:  Part Two

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

TY SOPLIVY SOPLYAK: Part Two

## TY SOPLIVY SOPLYAK: Part Two

#### by Josan

Title: TY SOPLIVY SOPLYAK: Part Two  
Author: Josan  
Feedback to:   
Author's Website: http://www.squidge.org/terma/josan/josan.htm  
Date Archived: 03/02/02  
Category: AU (Alternate Universe)  
Pairing (Primary): Krycek/Other  
Pairing(s) (Secondary): Well, Skinner is in it, and Mulder sorta shows up.  
Crossover Fandom (if any):   
Crossover Info (if any):   
Other Pairing Info:   
Rating: R  
Spoilers:   
Permission to Archive:   
Series or Sequel/Prequel:   
Notes:   
Warnings: EXISTENCE? What's that????  
Disclaimer: The X-Files characters were originated by CC, 1013 and Fox. The others all belong to me.  
Summary: Krycek, Skinner and even Mulder encounter some surprises.

**THE STORY**  
**(AT LONG LAST!)**

The first time I saw Alex Krycek, he killed me. 

I have since learnt that was pretty much customary behaviour for him. 

That was also the day he saved my life. 

I suppose I should start at the beginning. 

I am a clone. A VC. A vatted clone. A clone created from donor DNA but developed in a vat whose liquid compound helps speed up physical growth so that what should have taken some eighteen, twenty years on the outside took a mere four. 

The Consortium had been playing around with cloning and genetics for decades longer than scientists in the Outside World. I remember reading about Dolly the sheep in the late 90's and laughing my head off. 

There were other kinds of clones the Consortium had also developed before they had refined the suspension I and others like me were "born" from. 

There were their first successes, the drones. Brainless copies who could be taught a set routine and who would follow it until they disintegrated or were eliminated. 

There were the WC's. Womb clones. Clones who had been implanted into women's uteri and allowed to follow the normal "human" route through birth and aging. 

Eventually, they concluded that took too much time and concentrated on vatting. 

There were other benefits for them on the vatting. WC's were harder to manipulate. Brain wipes or memory alteration could be dangerous. Some of their early experiments in that ended up with no brain at all. And then it was hard to control their environments totally for the number of years necessary for the end product the Consortium required. 

Which in some cases - my case - was the perfect soldier. The perfect killing machine. Someone who could be aimed at a target and let loose to fulfill a contract and hurry on home. Well, back to the lab at any rate. 

Someone who obeyed without question. 

Which, to be honest, as much as I can be, was not me. 

There were fourteen of us successfully vatted at the same time. All from the same DNA source. We were "born" adults with absolutely no memory of anything. They, our scientific mid-wives, then implanted us with just enough memory from their data banks so that we could walk, talk, and listen. And then they handed us over to our trainers. 

Well, those of us who survived the memory implant. Twelve of us were handed over to the first set of trainers, who were in charge of our physical development. We were checked out constantly for coordination, ability to learn, to accept pain, to continue training when muscles were screaming for cessation. 

Nine of us went on to the next level of training. 

Here they incorporated education as well as continued physical training. Languages, reading skills, mathematics. Weapons training. 

And again, those who were deemed inferior were weeded out. Terminated. 

By us, the others. To prove our superiority. 

It was at this stage that I realized I was different from the others. That I had questions that I wanted answered. Fortunately for me, another clone had the same "flaw" and beat me to the punch. His immediate termination taught me to keep quiet and to go along with the flow. 

So we were "promoted" to the next level. Six of us. 

Our new trainers were on us constantly, alert for the slightest flaw. They added a variety of experiments to our daily schedule: sleep deprivation, torture, drug interrogation and provided us with the mechanisms to handle all they could dish out without actually killing us. 

One broke and was pulled out of line at morning inspection. The five of us were each given a Glock and told to shoot him. We found out later that there was only one live round in all five of the guns. He stupidly made a break for it and we fired pretty much as one, thereby ensuring that we lived to continue training. 

That night, as I lay on the narrow cot in the dormitory we all slept in, I knew it would be only a matter of time before my flaw was discovered and I too would be terminated. 

Still, I made it through that level of training without giving myself away. 

I did wonder if the others were like me, hiding their feelings, their questions. I finally concluded that three of them were the perfect weapons that our developers had hoped for. I came to that conclusion when we were assigned personal termination targets. People who were brought in to a large enclosed space and let loose for us to deal with. 

We were given deadlines which were gradually shortened so that we shot to kill on sight. Then they had us kill by other means. They armed the target and sent us in literally naked to deal with our assignment. 

I sometimes awoke in the night with the memory of that day's training. If the others did, I never caught them at it. 

The fifth one of us finally failed one assignment. Because of sloppiness. They gave him several other chances, but he kept on taking longer and making messier kills. He liked to play with his target, liked killing it as slowly as possible. They tried a mind wipe to train him out of this "bad habit" but it never took. He was finally terminated the day they caught him feeding on his kill. 

So that left me and three others to move on to the next stage of training. 

Actual outside kills. 

At first, they sent us out with a team to ensure that not only was the deed done, but that we would come back. Then they ostensibly sent us out alone, but all the time keeping us under surveillance. By then the investment they had in us was considerable. And they didn't want to lose their investment. 

Then, finally, the day when they really did send us out alone. 

They gave us the target, a time-line and a pick-up location. 

It was the second trial, I think, that gave me away. 

I had no trouble locating the target. Eliminating it. 

But then I had time to spare and, instead of heading immediately for the pick-up locale as the others did, I spent some time just walking around, looking at life as it was lived outside a training base. I really should have known that they would have the target under supervision. 

Still, no one questioned the time discrepancy between hit and pick-up. 

Not that time, nor the next. Not even the time after that. 

I think I clued in when the time-line was suddenly extended by several hours. 

Apart from the little I had read, my little excursions, I had no real experience of the Outside. I suppose I could have tried to make a run for it, but I knew that they would find me. I knew nothing about surviving in this world. 

So, I hit my target like a good little weapon and then spent the rest of my time - what I calculated would be pretty much the rest of my life - wandering around. I went to a bookstore and read bits and pieces on subject matters that I had never been allowed. I wandered into a museum and looked at a history I would never belong to. I found some money on the sidewalk and used it to buy myself something that was being sold on the street from a container that was attached to something that looked like a bicycle. Ice cream. And when the man asked me what flavour, I found myself asking for chocolate. Not a taste that I was familiar with. 

Damn, but that was good! 

So, come pick-up time, I went back and knew that I was on my way to termination. 

They waited until all of us were back in the training area. 

By now they were sure of the three others, but they still didn't believe in taking chances. The head trainer was accompanied by the usual armed bodyguards whose faces were masked with balaclavas. 

The head trainer gestured for me to come forward. 

I did. 

"You disappointed me, Clone. I had thought you would be one of our successes." 

I shrugged, slipped my hands into my pants pockets. "Ty soplivy soplyak," I said, smiling at him. 

Now I did wonder where the hell that had come from, as it certainly had not been part of any language class. Nor was it from any language I had been hearing on the Outside. Certainly wasn't in the English the head trainer had been speaking. 

Still, he understood what I had said. And didn't like hearing it from me. That much was obvious from the stunned glare he sent my way. He took a handgun and handed it to his favourite. 

Before my fellow VC had the opportunity to terminate me, the bodyguards suddenly began shooting. Not at me. Well, not immediately. The three other mes had their heads blown off while I stood there. Then, as the rifles turned on the head trainer and his staff, the bodyguard to the right of me took aim and shot me high in the chest. 

I remember hitting the floor and that was it. 

Not that I was dead. I came to fairly quickly to find that I alone was alive. Probably because I had been shot only in the chest. The others were all dead from head wounds. Even if they had been shot elsewhere, they had also been shot in the head. All except me. 

Not that I took the time to appreciate that. I managed to pull myself up onto my knees. I made my way to the weapon that was supposed to have terminated me and slipped it under my waistband. Not that I had any delusions of freedom. I just wanted to take someone with me. 

I dragged myself up onto my feet and staggered to the door, all the time bothered by a certain smell that didn't fit. I opened the door and then clued in. Smoke. The whole complex had been set on fire. And apart from this door, there was no way out of the area I was in. 

I remember thinking that I would prefer not to burn to death. Not that I had any real choice in the matter. In the hallway or here in the training area. Either way I was going to die. Shit, I remember thinking, I hadn't survived this long to go down without trying. 

So, off I went. 

And then something really strange happened. 

As I was staggering down the hallway, using the wall to keep me upright, a monster came out of the smoke right in front of me. It had a face like a canister. It stopped for a moment, made some kind of sound and then, the next thing I knew, I was hoisted over the monster's shoulder and it was taking me into the smoke filled hallway. 

I don't remember anything else of that day. 

I woke up in some private infirmary, being looked after by, of all people, nuns! 

I was kept sedated for some time and then the woman who identified herself as Mother Directress informed me that I was safe, that I was to remain here until further notice and did I want anything to read? 

I spent six months in that cloister. Getting better. Reading my way through their library. Learning to be a human being. 

Being able to ask any question and get answers without having to worry about termination. 

All except one. They wouldn't tell me the name of my benefactor. The nuns I saw every day because they didn't know. Mother Directress because she told me the one time I brought it up that I would know when it was deemed time for me to know. 

I suppose I could have challenged her on it. One of the great pleasures I had in my time there was arguing. Debating, Mother Librarian called it. But Mother Directress was not the kind to encourage debate. Shit, she reminded me of the head trainer too much for me to try anything with her. 

Then, one day, Mother Directress sent for me. But when I entered her office, she wasn't there. Instead there was a man standing, looking out the window, his back to the door. 

I scanned the room, seeing more than a dozen potential weapons, and was deciding what to try for when the man turned. 

It was me. 

Well, an older me. A slightly more battered me. A me who looked me over with discerning eye. 

"You look better than you did the last time I saw you." 

Shit. My voice as well, though more sarcastic. Speaking Russian. 

Hell, I hadn't survived training as long as I had without learning anything. 

I stood very still and kept my mouth shut. 

The man went to sit on the edge of Mother Directress's desk. I hoped she would open the door and catch him at it. I would have liked to see which one of them would win that battle. 

"My name," said the man, "is Alex Krycek. I'm the one who shot you." 

He waited. I suppose he wanted to see how I was going to react to that information. 

"Are you also the one who carried me out?" 

It took a moment or two but he nodded. 

"Who did not shoot me in the head as all the others were?" 

Again a small nod. The expression on his face was beginning to shift to amusement. 

I shifted my weight to one hip, cocked my head and smiled at him. 

"So, are you going to tell me why, when it was obvious that no one and nothing was supposed to survive that inferno, why it is that I have?" 

Alex shrugged in exactly the same manner that I did. 

I had to push it. I seriously wanted to know. Needed to know. Maybe the clone weapon that I had been could have let it drop, but for the last six months, I had been learning all sorts of human traits and tenacity was one that I found particularly pleasing. 

"I should have been killed like the others. I'm no less dangerous than they were. So why wasn't I? Couldn't have been the sight of me. I was there in quadruple. What made you think I was worth keeping alive? Or am I assuming too much? That you've kept me alive only to kill me?" 

Alex shook his head. "I'm not here to kill you. Or to send you out to kill and be killed. I would, however, like the answer to a question." 

I smiled. "Ask away. No one here gets terminated for asking a question." 

He nodded and I got from his expression that he probably knew more about me than I did. 

"When you stepped up to be...terminated, you swore at the man. Why did you use that particular insult?" 

An insult? I was alive because of some insult? 

I thought of making up some story then decided against it. I stood at attention and looked him straight in the face. 

As I had the head trainer. 

"I have no idea. I`d never heard it before that I can remember. It just popped out of my mouth. And before you ask, yes, I know we hadn't been speaking Russian. It just seemed to be incredibly appropriate, especially as it seemed to hit home." 

Alex nodded, holding onto my eyes. "You got a name?" 

I shrugged. "Back there, I was `Clone'. In here, I'm `Young Man'." 

Alex stood up. "Well, I suppose you'd better be a Krycek, for what that's worth. And Michael's innocuous enough." 

So that's how I became Michael Krycek. Misha to my friends. 

And to my lover. 

Not right away. 

Neither the Misha nor the loving. 

I went with Alex to another location where he was certain I would be safe. He stayed with me, just a few weeks, I guess to be certain that I could survive on my own. That I wouldn't just plain disappear. That I had something to keep me busy. 

A project. 

Alex introduced me to my first computer and gave me my first hacking lessons. I have to admit I took to that like a duck to water. 

And then he turned me loose to gather all the information I could on various Consortium projects. 

He'd show up every now and then, just to see how things were going. 

I think he knew right away that I would always cover his back if he was around. He used his time with me to catch up on his sleep. To recover from whatever had occurred since his last visit. 

Which is probably why he didn't have the resources at hand to deal with the information I had for him about a year after he'd given me the project. Why my nose has this bump on its bridge. 

From where he broke it. 

We'd never really talked about it, but we had always assumed that I was Alex's clone. That he was the original. 

He wasn't. 

What he was was one of their WC successes. A womb clone. 

He didn't handle that information well. I guess you could say he freaked out. First thing I knew, I was on the floor, nose throbbing, bleeding all over my sweater. He came for me again and I saw death in his eyes, as I had in the head trainer's that day. And that day I learned that no matter how well trained I had been, Alex, even with one arm, was better. I had survived training. Alex had survived in the Outside. I was struggling for breath when he suddenly pulled away. I didn't see him again for several months. 

Now and then he passes his finger over my nose. "You should go for plastic surgery," he'll say. "Get a new nose. A new face. Take your share of the money and go live a real life." 

I no longer try to explain to him that will never happen. 

"Ty soplivy soplyak," I answer. 

It took me a long time to track down the information on our original. A kid whose parents were scientists with the Consortium. Russian. Who, like Bill Mulder, had given up the child whose DNA was conducive to replication. Who didn't live to be as old as Samantha Mulder. 

When Alex came back that time, we became lovers. Well, we had sex. 

One of the things I had discovered when I was living with the nuns was that this thing I used to piss with had other uses. I guess while we'd been in training, they must had slipped something into our food so that our bodies had no sexual feelings. They hadn't wanted anything to detract us from their designated plan. 

I had had the presence of mind not to ask the nuns about what my body was beginning to feel. Or how I should handle it. But I had found enough information in my reading to clue in. 

Masturbation was still novel enough for me that I was more than satisfied with that form of sexual release at the time. Alex suddenly reappeared an afternoon I was lying on the couch, meat in hand. 

I'll admit I was embarrassed. 

He said nothing. Came over, sat down next to me and leaned over. Gave me my first blow job. 

Shoot! Better than chocolate. 

And that was about it. For the duration of his stay, we jacked each other off. And I learnt to give head from the way he blew me. 

We never talked about the fact that we were both clones. 

We never have. Not to this day. I doubt we ever will. 

Before he left, Alex asked me to go through all the documentation and to assemble any and all references to Orgel's nanocytes experiments. Then to delete it from the main data. He also wanted me to pull out all and any references to the actual experimentation done on Samantha Mulder. Mulder, he said, didn't need to know what had actually been done to her. 

He told me to set up some secure sites on the Internet where the main data could be stored for eventual downloading. 

Then he asked me to hunt around for a new safe bolt hole. Somewhere in the continental United States where it would be safe to retire, should he live. 

Then he disappeared again. 

Nine months this time. 

By the time I realized something had gone wrong, tracked him down to Tunisia, was getting ready to go in guns blazing to get him out, Marita-the-bitch had bought him out. 

Meanwhile, I had found this land in the Tennessee mountains. Several hundred acres for sale by a coal mining company that had taken everything it wanted out of that part of the Appalachians and had now abandoned them. The land had been on the market for years. They were more than happy with the price I offered. 

I had carefully checked out the lay of the land. Apart from a couple of sites, even a helicopter would have trouble finding a place to land. There were scatterings of tunnels that had been dug that went only down. Not that far down either as the coal in this part had not been of high grade quality. 

There was a town...well, a village..nearby that lacked a great many amenities, but there was a larger centre not that far away. Besides Fed-Ex advertised they went anywhere. 

I decided that our house should be built in the site of one of those empty mines. 

_Our_ , because if Alex thought he was going to ground alone, he would have to rethink his plans. 

So, while I was trying to track Alex down, at the same time I paid for a select group of out of state construction people to come build us a small fortress. I personally flew them in with my new toy, a helicopter that I had gotten for a real bargain at a military equipment sale. The locals thought the mining company was up to something because I paid to use some of their trucks to haul in everything that was needed. I paid triple time - cash - so that in a matter of eighteen days, I flew the crew back home. 

The house doesn't look like anything special. It looks like it's made of grey siding, the colour allowing it to blend in well against the bareness of the mountain. It's amazing what they can do with steel these days. The roof, what shows, is also steel. The veranda that runs the length of the front is wood, fireretardant. Painted the same grey. 

The house inside is open concept. The kitchen/dining/living room is L-shaped with windows - bulletproof glass, of course - further opening up the space to the outside. The steel shutters which roll down are as effective at withstanding attack as is the house itself. 

The enclosed areas are the library - Alex's office, a john for visitors to use that also has the laundry facilities, and the bedroom with its ensuite bathroom. Complete with Jacuzzi, sauna and a tub deep and wide enough for two. Ditto the shower that's in the corner. 

Did I explain that besides discovering the pleasures of my hand, I picked up the habit of long soaks and hot showers in the cloister? Washing in training had been cold, quick and efficient communal showers. 

The back of the house is the next line of protection. Three floors of re-enforced concrete structures, constructed in the old mine itself, that we can easily move into to defend ourselves if necessary. With its own well in the lowest level, generators and a stockpile of supplies that would put any War-of-theWorlds paranoid survivalist to shame. 

It's also where I have my work area, on the middle level. Over the years I've added enough computers and satellite monitoring equipment to it that Alex says it reminds him of a NORAD bunker he once visited. It's also from there that I patrol our land, see to our security. Hacking into spy satellite systems is not much harder than anything else I've done. 

The top area, which is on the same level as the house but deep inside the mountain, is a duplication of the outer house. 

Not that it's been used much. 

But it's there if needed. 

Alex took one look at the set up and approved. By then, we had accepted that we often shared the same ideas about certain things without having to discuss them. Security was one of those things. 

It was there in our new home that he finally fucked me. 

It started out the usual way. Naked on our new bed, him giving me a blow job when he suddenly pulled away and got out of bed. 

I protested with a loud moan. 

He grinned this really wicked grin. 

Shit! I still get hard when he flashes that particular grin at me. 

He rummaged through his clothes and came up with a couple of small foil packs. 

He took his time preparing me. He made me wait, dragged it out until I was almost screaming with frustration. 

Then he taught me what else a dick was good for. He wasn't particularly gentle. Not rough either. Mind you, by that point, all I knew was that something was going to explode and I only hoped I would survive. 

I assume he came. I know I did. A house made of steel, no matter how well insulated, has an incredible echo. If you scream loud enough. And I did. 

By the time he left, there wasn't a place in the old homestead he hadn't fucked me in. And I was ready \- and willing - anytime he was. 

Before he left, he handed me a large box of condoms and a list of what he called "safe" places to experiment in. Sex, that is. A couple in Nashville, others in near-by states. 

I went and tried all the clubs on that list. I found that I had no trouble getting men to come to me. I bottomed to some, topped others. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy all that. I did. Hell, I was young and still new to this sex thing. But it didn't take me long to realize that's all it was. Sex. A quick blow job, a fast hand job. An impersonal fuck. Satisfying at the moment, but that's all it was. A thing of the moment. 

Not like with Alex. 

With none of the holding. The teasing. The care. 

The pleasure I got in knowing that when Alex screamed, _I_ was responsible. The touching afterwards. Not much, but enough so that when one of us woke up, the other was at hand. 

Convenient for dealing with nightmares. 

Alex's nightmares. 

I knew what I was and was to be from the beginning of my understanding. I don't have a problem with either. Alex, on the other hand, has history. And most of it not good. So, being close at hand made it easy for me to wake him before history replayed itself in his dreams. Made it nice to have an excuse to hold him and be held by him. 

I found that though the release was enjoyable, I missed Alex. I threw the list away and went home. 

So, while I worked on making the house more liveable, Alex went back out to deal with the remnants of the Consortium, Replicants and other things that go "Boo!" in the night. 

I don't think that when he offered the DoJ the deal, he thought Skinner would be involved as much as he was. 

Thank whoever keeps an eye on clones that we had prepared for any eventuality. 

And I still wish I had gone back and blown him and Mulder up when I got a good look at Alex that night in the helicopter. 

He may have been a clone like me, but damn, he was used to being in control of himself. Hell, even in Tunisia, he had taken care of himself. Now, more than ever after everything that had happened in the last couple of years, he needed it. 

And for five months he had had none. In that glass cage they'd kept him in, they had controlled everything about his life. It was like being back in the silo, but instead of the darkness, now the light was neverending. 

Shit, in the time they had him, he was never allowed a moment by himself, unwatched and unfilmed. Wasn't allowed anything to read. No TV. No radio. At the beginning, there were questions someone wanted answered but that distraction gradually disappeared so that he had nothing to keep him occupied but his thoughts. 

Was never allowed to sleep in anything but the full light that they kept on him at all times. 

Skinner would have crowed with victory if he had known how close Alex had been to breaking that night. 

I managed to get him home before I realized just how bad he was. 

He wouldn't let me near him. He had nightmares that had the house echoing with his screams, but he pulled away if I got within six feet of him. 

I wanted to hold him. To help him deal with the after-effects. And he wouldn't let me. 

That's when he told me to take my share of the Consortium accounts we have ferreted away in various banks around the world and get out. Change my face and go live a normal life. 

I ignored him. It was hard sometimes when he was yelling obscenities at me at the top of his lungs. Some of the things he said were hurtful. I may be a clone but I'm human enough to have feelings. And he knew my weaknesses as well as I did. 

I knew he was hurting and trying to deal with that. So, when he got in a certain mood, I started going for long walks to get away. It was either that or kill him. 

After a few months, when his mind finally accepted that he could too, he would take off, walking until he barely had the strength to make his way back. 

I think that first year there wasn't an acre of our land that he didn't walk. 

A dog was what finally allowed him to accept comfort from me. What finally got him on the road to healing. 

He came back from one of his walks, covered in blood, carrying some mutt that had been caught in a fucking leg-hold trap that some fucking idiot had placed on _our_ land. The dog's left hind leg was hanging on by a thread and Alex was too. 

He allowed me to help bandage the dog who was barely alive. And there he sat, cross-legged on the kitchen floor, holding this dying dog in his arms, crooning to it. 

The mutt had lost way too much blood to survive. It died in Alex's arms. 

When Alex realized the dog was dead, he began making these sounds. Loud, painful gasps that seemed to rip out of him. Like he didn't want to let them out but they weren't allowing him any choice in the matter. 

He held onto that damn dog and finally gave in to the sobs. 

At one point, I couldn't stand it any longer. I went and sat behind him, pulled him and the dead dog into my arms and held on for dear life. 

He was so stiff at first. As though the sounds were so painful that his body could only handle them with rigored muscles. Shit, I hurt just listening to him. 

Then, gradually, he leaned back against me and I discovered I could hold him even tighter than I had been. 

I have no idea how many hours we sat that way. Eventually, his body gave in to exhaustion and he slept, still holding the dog, still leaning against me. 

He was still sleeping when I eased the dog out of his arms and went outside to bury it. Then I came back in and took Alex in my arms again. 

I was still holding him when he woke. 

After a few minutes, he reached out with his hand and stroked the side of my face. His voice was so raw that I could barely make out the words he was saying. "Misha, why are you still here?" 

What could I say that would make him understand that we were more than brother clones? More than a couple of weapons who were, according to the men who had created us, flawed? More than two men who found sexual release with each other? 

"Ty soplivy soplyak, Alexei," I said. 

It was as if the crying had rid Alex's psyche of a lifetime's pain and hurt. 

He allowed me to touch him again. 

I had been sleeping in the back house but now I moved into the front house bedroom with Alex. All we did was share the bed for some weeks. Then, one night, while I was jacking off in the shower, Alex joined me. He dropped to his knees and our sex life resumed. With one exception. Before, Alex had been top dog. Now all he wanted to do was bottom. 

I saw to it then that the house echoed with his shouts of completion. I didn't mind being the one in charge. Hell, Alex needed care and time to recover, to learn to live again and I gladly gave both to him. And, though I loved fucking him, I have to admit that I missed having him fuck me. 

So, whereas before, he had been the leader, now he was content to follow. Everywhere but off our land. 

By the way, I found the fucker who set the trap. They never found him. 

Duggan was just a deputy in those days. He came from the next town over but he took his role seriously. His grandmother had been a hill girl and she had helped raise him when his city mother had decided that she didn't like living in the back of beyond. 

About the time I bought the land, some hill girls went missing. Three of them. On average, one every six months. 

They finally found one of the bodies. The autopsy revealed semen in the girl's vagina, anus and stomach. She had been strangled. She was all of thirteen. 

The State didn't spend much time on the case. The prevailing attitude seemed to be it was only a hill kid and who the hell cared? 

Duggan cared. 

Some of the girls were disappearing off his territory and Duggan took it as a personal insult. He was young enough to think that Justice should prevail. 

Duggan is a big lad for these parts. Most of the people up here are shorter than city people. More wiry as well. Life is tough up here and it shows. Duggan may have had links to the hills but was not of the hills. His father had a decent job and Duggan was used to eating three square meals a day. He had played football in school. All that showed. He's about six foot tall and still weighs in at fighting weight. Around two thirty. Sort of Skinner in his prime, but with hair. And the same bulldog tenacity. 

The girls kept on disappearing and they were growing younger and younger. 

He finally had a suspect. The son of some Nashville big-wig. He even caught him in the act of picking up his next victim, a pretty little girl of nine. 

And that's when Duggan learnt that there were two kinds of Justice. One for the poor and another for the rich. 

DNA samples went missing. The girl and her family disappeared. The big-wig pulled out all his heavy guns and pointed them directly at Duggan. 

It never even went to pre-trial. 

And the asshole kid thought it funny to drive into Duggan's territory and offer rides to little girls. 

Another girl went missing. This one from a village near us. They found her body three days later. She had been penetrated, but Asshole was now smart enough to use a condom. 

No DNA samples to be had. Even if they would have made it to the State Forensic lab. 

There was a big do going on at Fergus's a couple of weeks later. One of the local kids had gotten married - properly churched with a minister and all - and they were holding the reception in the bar. Everyone in the area had been invited. Even us. Well, even me. Most people were not aware that there were two of us living up here. 

I was in the village for another reason. Picking up something, I think, though I can't remember what it could have been. 

Duggan was there, keeping an eye on things, seeing to it that long-fought feuds did not flare up again. 

I was getting back into the pick-up when Asshole drove down the street in the fancy red convertible that Daddy had just bought him. He slowed down to salute Duggan. 

I knew what the expression on Duggan's face meant. He turned back into the small room that served as his office when he was up here and I followed him as fast as I could. 

He was loading a rifle when I burst in. 

Alex might have been more experienced than I was, but I was better trained than Duggan, even if he did outweigh me by a good forty pounds. I managed to get the rifle away from him and shoved him up against the wall. 

"Listen to me!" 

"FUCK OFF! He's here to _prey_ again and *I'm* going to stop him!" 

I pressed harder against his throat. He had to listen to me if he was ever going to breathe again. 

"You go to the reception. You see to it that everyone, including the minister, sees you there. You stay there. You dance with the women. You talk hunting with the men. You stay until the place shuts down. You hear me?" 

"Kry..." 

"*I'll* take care of the problem." 

He squinted his eyes at me. He had come up to the house when the trapper had gone missing. Now he just looked me straight in the eyes. I waited until he reached his decision. He nodded and I let him go. 

Daddy's people tried hard to place the blame for Asshole's disappearance on Duggan. Fortunately for all of us the minister was one of those who took his faith seriously. No amount of money Daddy offered shifted him from his statement that Duggan has been there all that evening . And the hill people, remembering that the State had not been that diligent in pursuing the killer of their children, could also not be budged. 

They found Asshole's car, but never his body. 

When Duggan ran for Sheriff, Daddy parachuted in his own candidate, but again, too many people remembered and Duggan won. Of course, he'll never be anything other than the local sheriff, but he's okay with that. He married the girl he'd had a crush on in high school, one of the brainy girls who didn't have the time of day back then for a football jock. He spends a couple of nights up here maybe once a month, as he does in various parts of his territory - his way of keeping a close eye on what's going on, and he joins us for supper. We talk about all sorts of things, but never about Asshole and his disappearance. 

We'd been living here about four years when Alex decided he wanted to see what the village was like. He'd been gradually getting better. More like the old Alex who had carried me out of a burning lab. 

Now and then, he even took the lead in our love-making. 

We got to town as the school bus was dropping off the few kids who went to the next town for schooling. Many of the local kids dropped out as soon as they could. Education was not much of a priority around here. 

Alex watched as two girls, about ten or eleven, got off. One crying silently, the other grim-faced. The toad of a bus driver was telling them what he thought of the girls from this part of his route. The boy following them off had clenched fists but said nothing to defend the girls. 

The next time Duggan came for supper Alex asked him who he thought was the brightest kid in the area. 

Duggan shrugged, didn't ask why. Thought and gave him a name. "Charlie Daniels. He made it to the last year of high school before he gave up. His father needed him to help work the farm, such as it is. I always thought he'd get out." 

Charlie Daniels was tall, skinny, with blue eyes that even at nineteen could drill a hole through you. Alex made him an offer. He'd pay for a cousin to help his father on the farm. He'd pay for a tutor to make up that last year of high school. Then he'd pay for his schooling in Nashville if he came out with a teacher's certificate and a willingness to return home to teach for the same number of years that Alex paid for. 

The school is in this big old house in the village that Alex bought. Charlie uses the downstairs for his teaching area, lives upstairs. He took courses year-round and finished his degree in record time. His students are all local kids so that no one has to take that bus trip to town. He's got maybe 20 to 25 kids at any time, from grade one to the end of high school. Somehow, Duggan got the County to pay for part of his salary. I'd like to know what he has on the trustees, considering the County feels this is a "private" school. 

And if you start school with Charlie, you'd better be prepared to finish with him. One of the girls got pregnant and dropped out. Charlie went to pay a visit and the upshot was Mary Sue not only returned to class, but two weeks after her son was born, he was ensconced in a crib at the back of the room. And if Mary Sue was busy with some work, someone who wasn't got up to care for the baby when he fussed. Charlie insisted that the boys do their share of cuddling, feeding Charles David. Even diapering him. He feels that males who are not afraid or embarrassed to be seen with a baby in their arms make for better fathers. Charles David is not the only kid who started school just after he was born. 

Charlie often comes for supper when Duggan does. 

Then there's the infirmary. 

True, that was because the dogs, our first line of defense, had done what they had been trained to do. Seen to it that trespassers were chased off. Not their fault that the two kids had been so drunk that they hadn't been able to outrun the pack. 

Not much we could do about the kid who lost half a cheek. But the other one lost his leg, not so much because of the dogs, but because the doctor in the hospital where he'd been taken decided that the leg needed too much work. Hill people don't have medical insurance. So instead of trying to save the leg, he amputated. 

Duggan was the one who came charging up to the house in one of his rare foul moods. We let him vent and, I knew from the look in Alex's eyes, we would be spending more money. Not that I mind. Hell, there's so much of it that we couldn't spend it all in two lifetimes each.. 

So in another house that had been abandoned, Alex paid for a nurse to come once a week. The place is well equipped but we had trouble finding nurses who wanted to come out this far. 

Charlie came up with the solution. "Mandy Ferguson," he announced one night at supper, "has this hankering to become a nurse-practitioner." 

"Good people, the Fergusons," said Duggan. 

Mandy graduated a couple of months ago. Duggan picked up her parents, dressed in their Sunday best, and drove them to Nashville for graduation. He took his vid-cam with him. Mrs. Ferguson sat there, back straight as a rod, not saying a word throughout the whole ceremony, her face prideful. Her husband wept silently from the moment their daughter's name was called to go up on the stage to get her diploma. 

The infirmary is now open five days a week and if there's an emergency, Amanda Ferguson carries a cell phone around with her. 

Charlie seems to be very interested in her these days. 

About a month after it became known that Mandy was going off to nursing school, there was a knock on our front door. 

In the middle of the day. 

We weren't expecting anyone and the dogs were off somewhere doing whatever it was they did unless we wanted them or they wanted feeding. We put them on guard mainly at night. Or if I was leaving Alex alone for any reason. 

We both went for our weapons. I answered the door. 

The boy was clean, well scrubbed. About sixteen. Shaking scared but brave enough to have made the trek up to our door. 

"My name," he tried at least three times before he got that out, "is James Cameron MacDonald. I'd like to go to school." 

Which is why we'll be paying MIT tuition for the next four years. 

Duggan laughs. Calls us the Krycek Scholarship Foundation. Alex is seriously thinking about that. Well, we won't live forever and this place has been good for and to us. 

Charlie wondered if we would only be paying for professions. Seems Mary Sue would like to take a one-year course in Cosmetology. She'd like to set up a beauty parlor in her home. Feels, she explained to us, that just because people here don't have money to throw away doesn't mean they shouldn't have nice haircuts and dos. How people look helps them feel good. Gives them confidence. 

She's taking Charles David with her and she's given the boy's father an ultimatum. He has to finish high school. Then and only then will she marry him. Properly. With a minister. She wants her son to grow up understanding that education is important. 

I think she'll get her way. They're stronger than the men, the women up here. 

Alex is a whole lot stronger than he was, too. He's picked up the pieces of himself and put himself back together. As well as he could. 

Part of the cure I think were the dogs. 

He didn't mind bottoming to me but he sure as hell wasn't going to let any dog think he was bottom of the pack. 

These days he fucks me as much as I fuck him. 

The dogs pretty much just showed up. One at a time. Some found their way to our door. Others I brought home, or Alex did. Laika was a pup that someone tossed out of a car near the village. Duggan used his siren to stop them and it was amazing how many violations of the traffic code he hit them with. Seems her mother was a Champion fox terrier, sire came from a good neighbourhood. He couldn't keep the pup so he brought her up, dropped her into Alex's arms and took off before either of us could say, "What????" 

She worships Alex and, as I said, if we have any kind of argument, if I'm dumb enough to raise my voice to him when she's around, Laika takes great offense and has no qualms in showing me whose side she's on. Alex finds it funny. 

He's laughing again. Took him ten years. 

So, here we are, with Skinner on his way back to the big city and Alex shaking his head at me as I come out of the bushes. 

"Misha", he says, as though exasperated with me. 

"Alexei," I answer, using the same tone. 

I come around and grin at him. He shakes his head. What? Did he seriously think I was going to allow him to meet with Skinner and not provide back-up? 

So I kiss him. Soundly. And then go round to the passenger door. Laika knows to jump into the back. I climb into the Hummer. Alex sighs, slips in behind the steering wheel. 

We're going home where I will drag him into our bedroom and fuck him through the mattress. Just to remind him that he's not alone. 

Duggan will come for supper, vent about Asshole Big Federal City Suits and remind both of us that we are not alone. That we have friends. Good friends. A life that has its ups and downs but is as real as anything else is in this world. 

Alex switches on the ignition and turns to look at me. He grins. 

Shit, maybe I'm the one who's going to get fucked through the mattress. 

"Misha," he says, "Ty soplivy soplyak." 

Ty soplivy soplyak. 

You are a snotty snot-nose. 

When I did the research on our original, he turned out to be a psychotic little cuss. I understood why his parents were so quick to hand him over. They couldn't control him and he was almost beyond what any of the geneticists and trainers could control. He must have realized that they were never going to stop "testing" him, that he was never going to be anything other than a lab rat, so he decided to put an end to it. 

Eleven years old. He found a gun, ammunition and went into one of the vat labs and shot out the vats and either wounded or killed anyone he found in the place. 

Of course, they killed him. 

But all the time he fired, he kept yelling, "Ty soplivy soplyak!" 

No wonder the head trainer reacted to my saying that to him. It had certainly never been said in front of me. And they had purposely weeded that out of the memories they had implanted in Alex. 

He was strong stuff, our DNA provider. Nature over nurture. 

It was Alex's favourite insult as a kid. Not that he ever said it aloud. Only to himself. 

It was what made him decide the day that he and some Rebel aliens infiltrated a lab to destroy it that I should live. 

He says it to me whenever he wants to tell me how he feels about me. I say it to him for the same reason. 

Ty soplivy soplyak, Alexei. 

&&& LA FIN &&&

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